


Toast

by stubbornbones



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7549000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubbornbones/pseuds/stubbornbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Headcanon backstory for Toast the Knowing</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toast

“Oh, you are _toast!_ ” her sister screamed, making another desperate grab at the wooden toy gun. The girl skipped back a few steps and frowned in confusion.

“What did you just call me?” she demanded. “What does that even _mean?_ ”

“It means you’re in big trouble and you’re gonna get _beat_ ,” her sister shot back. “I heard Mama say it about that new boy they’ve got on the trade convoy. She said he was toast and he wouldn’t last one day out in the wastes.”

“Well, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I don’t even know what a toast is.” She easily evaded another one of her sister’s lunges. Grinning smugly, she pointed the gun at her sister’s heart. Feet apart, one hand supporting the other, just like she’d seen the Bullet Farmer’s Gunners practicing. “Bang.”

“ _Toast!_ ” her sister shrieked again, tackling her into the dirt.

***

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!” Her Mama was apoplectic, red anger making her neck and cheeks even darker. “Sneaking out with the war party! What if the Buzzards had sent a hydraulic after that car? You would’ve been toast, that’s what, and I bet you didn’t think of that when you went out glory-seeking, did you!”

“But Mama, I helped! I really did!” she protested. “If I hadn’t reloaded the rifles for them, they never would’ve shot those Buzzards down in time.”

“You’re lucky the Bullet Farmer doesn’t toss you out into the wastes himself, impudent girl,” her Mama said, but some of her anger had diffused.

***

“Stop being so damned stupid!” she snarled over the roar of the truck’s engine. The Gunner glared at her and gripped the rifle tighter in his bloody hands.

“I don’t take orders from no Ammo Sifter,” he spat. “’Specially not a girl,” he added, raking his gaze down her body. She didn’t understand the gesture – after all, she was dressed in the same weathered layers of fabric he was – and something about it turned her stomach, but she chose to ignore the unpleasant feeling for the moment.

“In case you haven’t noticed, _your trigger finger’s gone_ , and the Riders are regrouping as we speak. If you don’t give me the blasted gun, we’re toast, you stubborn smeg!” The insult was swallowed by the revving engines of the Rock Riders’ bikes. She growled and ripped the weapon from the Gunner’s mangled grip, turning just in time to send a bullet between the approaching Rider’s eyes.

***

“Get down!” her sister hollered. “Do you want a flamer to the head? I said get _down!_ ”

“I can’t!” she yelled back. “My hair is caught on the scope!” She jerked her head again, wincing as the tangle pulled painfully on her scalp. Her sister’s hands fluttered, uncharacteristically nervous, as another gout of flame passed over the open top of the truck. The heat of it made her eyes smart. Her fingers wrapped around the knife tucked into her waistband.

“Cut it!” she shouted, holding the blade out to her sister.

“What?!”

“ _Cut it!_ ”

After a moment of hesitation, her sister grabbed the knife and sliced through the snarled hair. Both girls dropped to the floor, breathing hard. They looked at the mess wrapped around the rifle scope, the long brown strands that had made their Mama so proud, and then at each other.

“Toast,” they said in unison, suddenly far more worried about the firestorm waiting for them at home than the one consuming the battlefield.

***

She didn’t understand why she had been chosen to be part of the greeting party. Immortan Joe of the Citadel, controller of all the Aqua Cola in this part of the Wasteland, was far too important to be greeted by a low-level Gunner such as herself. Her sister had seemed to share that sentiment this morning, concern shining in her one good eye as they hugged goodbye. An apprehensive knot constricted her chest, similar to the ones that formed in the silence before an ambush. The unease only increased when she was bustled into a small hut, out of sight but still close to the gates of the Bullet Farm. A handful of girls huddled inside, all of them pretty and healthy, no visible scars or tumors or twisted limbs. It all felt highly irregular.

The Immortan’s convoy was preceded with a wall of sound: shouting, the familiar deep growl of V8 engines, and loud, strange music. The walls of the hut trembled as the huge gates were pulled open; she felt an answering tremor make its traitorous way through her limbs.

The cacophony finally died down and the hut filled with a thick silence. She could hear voices talking back and forth, the Bullet Farmer’s dry, impatient tones and another booming voice that presumable belonged to the Immortan. After several minutes of conversation, a single sentence rang clear – “Bring out the girls!” – the door to the hut opened, and the girls were pushed outside into the blinding sunlight.

Immortan Joe cut an intimidating figure. He seemed… blank, somehow, without all the loops of ammo wrapped around his waist and chest – customary garb for citizens of the Bullet Farm – but power and vitality still lurked in the colorful medals pinned to his muscled chest and the long hair the bright color of a magnesium flare. His War Boys looked like animated corpses with their black and white body paint, but she supposed that was the point: what could be more commanding than your very own army of the dead?

She twitched under the weight of so many eyes, wishing she could run back to the sanctuary of the Armory and trade jabs with her sister as she oiled down the guns. The other girls seemed to be having similar thoughts. They squirmed and hunched, any pretense of courage quickly fading. She tried to straighten her spine; her Mama did not raise a coward. There was no reason for her mouth to be dry and her heart to be pounding the way it did after she had a brush with death – what her sister jokingly called a near-toast experience. Surely she was overreacting?

She lifted her head and stared directly into the Immortan’s disconcerting blue gaze. He lifted an arm and pointed straight at her.

“This one.”

***

The chambers were a cage. A well-appointed cage, to be sure: the beds were raised off the floor with metal frames, there were actual fabric rugs on the ground, and there were shelves filled with more books than she’d ever seen before. But the metal door was heavy like a vault’s, and it slammed shut with a sound like her doom.

She stood in the center of the room, trying not to shiver in the damp chill as she stared down the girls huddled on the stone staircase. They were dressed in flimsy white muslin (how impractical! Never mind that she now wore the same) and their flowing hair made her absurdly self-conscious about her own short cut. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear the silence a moment longer, the tall one, the one with yellow hair and scars on her high cheekbones, stood.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was steady and there was something dangerously close to pity in her eyes.

It was too much. She dropped her eyes to her feet and muttered glumly.

“Toast.”


End file.
